Reviews

The Invaders is back on TV-and the good news is that it has more than stood the test of time.Intelligent,creepy,well acted and intriguing this is surely the daddy of alien invasion shows.Roy Thinnes is as good as you remember-surely he should have become a major star.Your totally rooting for him as he strives valiantly to wake a disbelieving public up to the nightmare it's facing. Some great support from high quality special guests like Roddy McDowall and Jack Lord.A fantastic creepy score,magnificent narration and a plot that reveals more diabolic strands with each episode make The Invaders box-set heaven......David Vincent has seen them!

Without the genius of Sergio Leone most spaghetti westerns are usually trash.Django bucks the trend and is a fast paced,action packed addition to the genre.Nero turns in a charismatic performance in the title role though the dubbing leaves a lot to be desired.Not the terrible lip synching which you expect(if not demand)but the performance of the actor delivering Django's lines.He seems merely to be reading off a piece of paper with little attempt to convey drama or emotion.That said the action keeps coming and things are never allowed to drag in the films lean running time.It's violent for sure with an extremely high body count.Lets just say practically everyone who spends any significant time on screen ends up dead-though the cartoonish nature of the violence means the sqeamish wont have too much problem with it.However it's clearly a total rip off of Eastwood's Man With No Name and basically just a good exploitation flick so for that reason it deserves no more than a six out of ten.

The Exterminator is a borderline video nasty from the 80s heyday of the genre.Cheap looking in parts though overall shot with a higher budget than usual for this type of fare-I have to admit I was kinda rooting for Ginty's trigger happy anti-hero.Unfortunately he is given little in terms of character development but shows a good way with a one liner and handles the few sensitive moments well(surely he deserved better than ending his career on Baywatch Nights!).But it's the graphic violence that is the film's selling point-sometimes nasty other times a bit laughable.Villains are straight from central casting though manage to be unpleasant nonetheless.Movie takes an unexpected dark turn with a sequence involving a vice den-which will leave you feeling like you need a shower.I enjoyed it-with reservations.The makers of the Jason Bourne trilogy were certainly paying attention to the ending-I'l say no more than that!

Christopher Lee as Fu Manchu and a plot involving a bevy of nubile beauties killing heads of Governments with poison kisses.Surely your set for an enjoyably kitch Hammer film.Sadly no and the reason is probably Jesus(or "Jess" as he's billed here)Franco.This film is every bit as awful as everyone says it is.Put simply there are no redeeming features.Badly made in every possible way and worst of all utterly boring.Lee does very little and what he does makes no sense.I only managed about 45 minutes of this tripe before giving up.I refuse to believe anyone has sat through the entire running time unless they were tied to a chair or have masocistic tendencies.Incredibly the same team made another Fu Manchu film which is said to be even worse-which must've taken some doing!

Let's not pretend that this film is some kind of masterpiece-it's Hammer and you know what your in for.Like most of these movies it takes an eternity to get going but when it does your just about glad you stuck with it.Acting is above average for the genre-Morel is excellent as the hero and plays the upper class gent with aplomb.Never did understand why the Squire wanted a crew of zombies in the first place.It seems he was only using them as cheap labour for the tin mine situated underneath his house-an extreme measure to go to.Suppose zombies don't need lunch breaks or ask for pay rises but by the look of them they make pretty crap workers for a tin mine.Not in the least scary-but good hammy Hammer fun.